


Peacocks & Pistols

by cmshaw



Category: Kate and Cecelia - Caroline Stevermer & Patricia Wrede
Genre: M/M, Magic, Napoleonic Wars, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:46:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmshaw/pseuds/cmshaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And if you think an officer on Wizard Wellington's staff travels in sufficient state to warrant taking a chocolate set everywhere he goes, well, you're mistaken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peacocks & Pistols

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gloria Mundi

 

 

> "Dear old James." [Thomas] took a sip of claret and regarded me with his brilliant, hooded gaze. "What a diplomat -- I recall the winter after Salamanca. We were with Wellington in Frenada. James was one of his aides-de-camp, and found a way for us to hunt the Duke's pack of hounds. It was the one source of amusement all that dreadful winter -- Frenada was quite the dirtiest village I ever saw on that whole campaign. Anyway, we hunted the foxes to extinction and had to start in on the neighborhood wolves. When the Duke learned of it, _we_ were nearly extinct, I can tell you. But trust James to find a way to turn old Hooky up sweet. He had the Duke to Cadiz and the lovely ladies there in a trice, and the whole staff along with him. Well, almost the whole staff. I was ordered to remain behind in Frenada, but that was small punishment in light of the crime."
> 
> \--Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, Sorcery & Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

* * *

James dropped heavily to the snow-covered ground behind the trunk of the large tree and with intense concentration began reloading his pistols. He could barely feel the tips of his fingers -- indeed, had the metal of each pistol not been warmed by prior shots from it, he would have doubted his ability to reload them at all -- and the air he expelled with each deep breath billowed white before his face. He kept half of his attention on the silence of the woods around him until he could stand, loaded pistols in hand, and peer cautiously eastward along the shadow of his sheltering tree. Where the devil was Thomas?

Something crashed in the underbrush slightly to the left of James' line of sight. Either it was the Frenchman, in which case he should move that way to intercept him, or it was Thomas, in which case he should move that way to join forces. Or it was a diversion set up by the Frenchman, in which case he was liable to be shot at if he stirred. With a devout prayer that, should the third case be the true one, one of Thomas' many and varied charms would protect him, James ran to the left.

No one shot at him as he darted forward, his steps hindered by the drifted snow in just those open areas where he wanted to move fastest. He fetched up at the base of a small decline beside Thomas himself. Thomas was folded in an uncomfortable position, and James hurried to assure himself that the other man was unhurt, patting at him with his cold hands and peering worriedly at the surrounding snow and thorny branches for blood.

"'M fine," Thomas mumbled. He shook himself and seemed to recover some strength, pushing James' cold hands away from his bare neck and face and adjusting his scarf until he was covered again. "I've broken his protection, I think."

James noticed, then, the blue porcelain teetering uncertainly on a few small rocks beside Thomas, and picked up the pot hastily. "Of all the times to stop for chocolate," he said, and Thomas gave him the usual obliging chuckle. "Your leg?"

"Still bends," said Thomas, unfolding it in proof. It appeared that in bending himself up in the fashion in which James had found him he had managed to fall onto the small sack which usually carried his chocolate set. He dug it out and held open the top of it for James to slip the pot in. "Thank you," he said, and slung the sack over his shoulder. "Your bandage is holding my leg together well. I believe our fox is still headed toward the town."

James, no wizard himself, took this news with great relief. "Can we catch him?" he asked.

Thomas grinned, madcap. "Tally-ho," he said, slapping the snow from his trousers as he rose. James gestured for him to lead the way, and Thomas slipped one hand around and into the haversack, narrowed his eyes, and set off through the woods. He muttered beneath his breath as he moved, a constant stream of classical Greek that made him sound like an absent-minded tutor after a particularly good glass of claret. Besides his sack, filled largely by his chocolate set, he had a sword slung at his hip which seemed to avoid slamming into various woodland obstacles by the sheerest luck, as Thomas' path through the woods also gave the appearance of having been chosen more by claret than by sense. James holstered one pistol next to his own sword and followed, still listening carefully to the woods around them. The Frenchman had been unhorsed in the altercation which had led to the blow to Thomas' leg, but he still carried his pistol and sword. The willingness with which he had abandoned his horse suggested strongly (as did their subsequent search of the abandoned tack) that he also carried the valuable dispatches on his person. They had lost time to the search, however, and also to what James now rather presumed had been a spell designed to throw them off the trail to which they now returned.

James kept a close eye on Thomas as they moved. He seemed to be running easily despite his bandaged leg, which was reassuring. His manner of weaving drunkenly back and forth was familiar enough to no longer be alarming to James; Thomas insisted that this spell was more efficient than using scent hounds, despite the loss of dignity that came from joining the hunt as a dog rather than as a mounted gentleman. For all his peacock ambitions, there was a morbidity to Thomas that led him unerringly into the sorts of battles that would endanger both his life and his social standing, and James' pistols and fists had had to step in on more than one occasion -- although to be fair he rather suspected that the gaudily embroidered handkerchief which he wore tucked into his uniform pocket at all times had saved his life on certain occasions as well.

Now there was blood on the snow for even James to see in the dying light. If they didn't find their man soon, they might lose him entirely to the night, but James thought they would find him. A howl cut through the woods, and Thomas stumbled momentarily. James grabbed his elbow and broke into an open run; little good would ensue if they crept up to the stripped bones of a dead man. The chill wind seemed to cut his throat and chest, and the bones of his cheeks ached as he squinted into the underbrush. Thomas' muttering broke off, and he abruptly pulled James to the side. In a rush they skidded down a steep slope and burst out into an open space by a creek in which their Frenchman, looking much the worse for wear, was attempting to hold six men at bay with a sword, and had in fact managed a momentary draw. The strangers and the Frenchman, appearing equally startled, stepped back from each other to turn some attention to the two British officers suddenly present in their midst. The Frenchman, to his credit, took the situation's measure in one glance and bolted toward James and Thomas in an apparent attention to leave the two groups to continue without him, and he might have succeeded had Thomas not gestured pointedly in his direction. He stumbled and recovered, but his momentum was broken. James raised his pistol; stymied, the Frenchman spun about to find that the strangers had closed off his return.

One of the strangers lunged, a man with an unkempt brown jacket and an equally disreputable knife. He caught the Frenchman in the side with a slice through layers of cloth and enough flesh to startle a curse out of the Frenchman, who lashed out backhanded with a wild swordcut that the knife holder easily deflected. The wild swing turned in midair and struck the stranger solidly in the shoulder; James could hear bone give way to metal from where he stood. The Frenchman stepped back at bay and brought his sword up again.

James took a deep breath. "Stand off!" he cried. "This man is the prisoner of His Grace the Duke of Wellington!" For good measure, he repeated it in Spanish and then Portuguese.

The Frenchman spat in his direction without shifting his stance; the strangers laughed. One called to James, "Tell His Old Nosey Grace to come fetch him himself!" He spoke the King's English.

James narrowed his eyes. They hardly looked like British soldiers now, but if they were deserters they would certainly fight to the death, as that was all that would await them on capture. Behind him he heard Thomas draw his sword. "Can't you hold them?" he asked softly.

"I'm sorry," Thomas replied. "I wasn't prepared for wolves. I thought we were foxhunting."

"We're still here for the fox," James said. "We need those dispatches. Wolf's heads are secondary."

"Not quite as noble a sport," Thomas agreed.

James looked at the blood melting the snow around the fallen deserter. >From here he could smell it, sharp as a stropped knife. The man looked almost peaceful where he lay. "True," he said. With a sigh, he raised his pistol. He was standing close enough to the deserter who had spoken to see that his eyes widened in fear just before James' pistol ball burst through one of them and blew off the back of his head. He'd hoped to drive the others off, but instead they bellowed and leapt straight for his throat like the starving wolves Thomas had called them. His other pistol took one in the chest as he twisted to draw his sword, and Thomas was past him, ducking through knives and swinging his own blade in a deadly arc. James dropped his second pistol and swung into the fray, shoulder to shoulder with Thomas in time to block a cudgel that lashed out toward Thomas' bare head; his hand stung as the blade rang from the force of the blow, and he hastily adjusted his grip to keep hold of the sword.

Thomas had lunged past the ring of deserters to take the Frenchman in the thigh, James noted. That was good, as it would hardly do to lose him after all they had done. The Frenchman seemed a better swordsman than either James or Thomas, but he was unlikely to cooperate with foreign soldiers who had every likelihood of being the agents of his execution, after all. Thomas was not too bad with a blade -- it suited his morbidity, James thought uncharitably. James was by far the better shot with a pistol or a rifle of the two of them.

Knives and cudgels and once a fist flew at James, and he did his best to return the favor with the edge and occasionally the point of his sword. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Thomas spit one man through the chest on his sword and take a knife along the ribs from another man for it. He cried out and struck at the knife-wielder as Thomas staggered back, and then in a rush the deserters were gone, three fleeing into the woods and three lying face-down in the snow.

"James!" Thomas called, pointing toward the fleeing men, and then, with a different urgency, "James!" He shoved at James, who put up his sword and stumbled back, nonplussed. A pistol crack, he realized -- someone had just fired a pistol. He looked at Thomas, who had fallen in the other direction after shoving James away, and then at the Frenchman, who was crawling away from them, pistol in hand. Thomas lunged at the Frenchman and ran him right through.

"Schofield!" James yelled.

Thomas looked back at him. "He had a pistol," he explained.

"Yes, only one," James said. He sighed. "Is he dead?"

"I think so," Thomas said, and bent down to check this. "Yes."

James looked down at the object of their hunt. The Frenchman was crumpled back in his own blood, and he seemed to be looking at James, or perhaps Thomas, with a small confused frown. James rather thought that he had expected right until the end that he might escape and deliver his messages intact. Stiffly he knelt beside the body and began searching its pockets.

"Riding crop," Thomas suggested, pointing to where it lay in the snow.

"Indeed," James said. A funny thing for an unhorsed man to carry. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands, then twisted it sharply. The wooden handle split in two and revealed tightly rolled papers. "You were right," he said, and passed the papers to Thomas.

Thomas unrolled their find with care. He wasn't capable of breaking the Grand Cipher that Napoleon's wizards used, but Wellington had wizards who could waiting back in Frenada. One of them, James' friend Wrexford, had tried to explain the theory of the cipher to James once or twice, but it merely made James' head ache. Sorcery and aching heads were strongly associated in James' experience, although usually he attributed it to Thomas' presence. "It's what we wanted," Thomas said. He rerolled the papers and handed them back to James, who tucked them securely into his belt pouch.

The four bodies on the ground were deathly silent and unmoving now. "How badly are you hurt?" he asked Thomas.

"Quite," Thomas said grimly.

James took two long strides to Thomas' side. Blood stained the edges of the cut in his coat, but it didn't appear to be a terrible cut. "Take off your coat," he said, digging into his pack for bandage material.

"Not there," Thomas said. "That's just a scratch. James, they have my chocolate pot."

James' head snapped up. The pack that had been slung across Thomas' back was missing. "How?" he asked.

"I think the pack straps were cut in the fight," Thomas said. "They must have assumed it contained something valuable."

Slowly, James said, "If they open it and find nothing but a fine chocolate set, they'll smash it. They'll smash it and curse officers from the Duke down to the rawest ensign."

Thomas nodded, his face gray. "Yes," he said. "I must point out, though, that we have acquired the dispatches that are the dread Duke's only concern."

James put one hand over his belt pouch with its precious papers. "Damn the dispatches," he said. "Can you tell how far they've gone?"

Thomas' mouth curled into a small pleased expression. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back as if to savor nonexistent sunshine. James knelt down in the snow and began reloading his pistols. After a moment of thought, he took the Frenchman's pistol as well. The deserters' weapons he left. He scrubbed the blood from his sword with handfuls of snow and the edge of his overcoat. By the time he stood again, Thomas had opened his eyes. "Not beyond my ability to track it, at least." He held up a hand. "I'm not sure how far that is," he said. "I haven't exactly been willing to experiment in this matter."

"Can you still focus through it?" James said.

If that was incorrect terminology, Thomas ignored it. He shook his head. "No, that requires greater proximity. Less than a rod, always, and physical contact for complex matters."

James gestured to the plain tracks into the woods. "Let's move quickly, then."

Thomas hesitated. "The wolf's heads will know this ground," he pointed out. "I can track my focus in a straight line. That might give us an edge against ambush."

"All right," James said. "Lead, then."

Thomas set off along the tracks which James could see at first, but almost immediately the footprints turned left and wove away under the trees while Thomas plowed ahead through the underbrush. Thomas didn't run as with his tracking spell this time; he loped instead in an undeviating line that seemed to yield to solid trunks of trees only grudgingly. Once James had to reach out and physically restrain him from striking his head against a branch which crossed his line at head-height. Thomas shook him off and ducked under it, blindly intent. When he stopped at last, they'd almost lost all of the daylight.

"Are we close?" James breathed.

Thomas turned to him and nodded, seeming to see James for the first time since leaving the clearing. He gestured toward the slight rise ahead of them. James drew the Frenchman's pistol, handed it to Thomas, and drew one of his own. With great care he began to work his way uphill, wishing futilely that Thomas were at his back with his unsettling wizardry rather than a pistol; it was unlikely that Thomas would shoot so far awry as to hit James while firing at a target ahead of him, but it was not quite as impossible as he might have liked. He reached the top of the rise and looked over it, fortunately without exciting any notice from the two men below.

They'd found a fallen log and brushed it free of snow. Perhaps they meant to camp there for the night, or perhaps they had merely decided it was time to inspect their loot while some faint reflected sunlight remained. Whatever their reasons, James knew they could not be permitted to open the sack the taller man held between his knees now as he unlaced the top. At this range he would vastly prefer a rifle -- even a musket! -- but a pistol would serve. He set his second pistol down in front of the ground on which he lay, then braced his wrist and took aim.

"What are you doing?" Thomas breathed beside him.

James barely glanced at him. "Wolf's heads," he said simply. They were under a death sentence; James merely intended to carry it out expediently. The man had Thomas' sack open now.

He was too far away to see the man's expression when the pistol ball took him full in the center of his chest. The other man had time to leap to his feet, but James was ready for that. Without a firearm of his own, the second deserter was picked off as easily as the first.

"Sometimes you frighten me," Thomas said softly.

James was reloading. "Where is the third man?" he asked.

"Not running toward gunfire, it would seem," Thomas said. "Perhaps he had a falling out with his companions."

"Or perhaps he went for reinforcements," James said.

Thomas looked startled. "You think they're organized?"

"Soldiers tend to stay soldiers," James said, standing up cautiously. No one shot at him. "I assume even deserters remain amenable to the idea of a command hierarchy, if not of military discipline."

"Let us move quickly, then," Thomas said, and started down the hill.

James hurried after him. The first man he'd shot had fallen atop Thomas' sack. James lifted him away and laid him gently on his back. He crossed the corpse's arms and then picked up the sack. It was dusted with blood but still full. The straps were indeed cut. Thomas cradled it in his arms when James handed it to him, his fingers splayed across it shaking slightly. "Intact?" James asked.

"Intact," Thomas confirmed, and laughed. It was a short and giddy laugh that betrayed the fear he'd been facing since losing his chocolate pot, and James put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"We should go," James said.

Thomas nodded and waited for James to lead them away. If he stroked the sides of the sack containing his chocolate pot, James didn't notice.

They couldn't go terribly far before it became dark. "Do you want a light?" Thomas asked. His voice sounded overly loud to James' ears, attuned to the crunch of boots in snow and the whistle of a wind that grew steadily colder.

He coughed. "No, we shouldn't risk it," he said. "We'll need to camp until morning."

Thomas paused. "What about a heating spell?" he asked.

"Oh, please do!" James said, and Thomas chuckled. When they found a reasonably sheltered patch of clear ground beneath a fallen oak tree that held no animal occupants, he cast the spell with a circling of his hands and a rapid-fire mutter that might have begun life as enunciated Greek. It bespoke long familiarity with warming cold beds that James frankly envied. He unrolled the blanket from his own pack and spread it on the ground, then crawled onto it.

"Ah, that's good," Thomas sighed, edging in and sprawling beside him. "Although I'm afraid that if you called for camp in the hopes that I would be serving chocolate, I must confess that I'm a dreadful host and have run completely out."

James reached into his coat pocket and found the smooth metal of his flask. He swirled it in his hand as he pulled it free. "Whereas I seem well-supplied with brandy," he said. "Perhaps I should be the host and you the guest tonight, dear sir." He sipped and passed the flask to Thomas. "I beg you to tell me: is that the new style of tying one's cravat in London this season? I'm afraid I've grown quite continental."

In the near-pitch of the darkness under their fallen tree trunk, he could only imagine Thomas self-consciously tugging at the drape of his thick woolen scarf. "Indeed it is," he said, "but if I may impart a bit of wisdom often lost on the typical young gentleman of less discernment than yourself, far less important than the dye job is the lack of fleas."

James laughed, as much at the memory of a younger popinjay Thomas who had not yet learned such wisdom as at the sally itself. He unlaced his pack and brought out some salted pork. With a small bow he handed half to Thomas, who received it with the same. The grease had congealed and the meat was stiff with cold; James had to reclaim the brandy to handle the first taste, although after that it went down with the ease of long habit. Really, any habituation to this fare was too long, James thought, and swirled the brandy in the flask again. It wasn't noticeably lower. He saluted Thomas with the flask. "This," he said, "was a gift worthy of princes, my friend."

"I hope you refer to the brandy and not the dead pig," Thomas said.

James nudged him with an elbow. "I mean the flask."

"Had I given it to a prince, I would be hard-pressed to lift it from his hand and drink from it before him without giving unfortunate offense," Thomas said, lifting the flask from James' hand and drinking from it.

James got as far as opening his mouth for a remark about Thomas' rank as a Marquis before he remembered, and had to lean forward rather abruptly to reclaim the brandy. "Had you given it to a prince, he might also have objected to your placing your own crest upon the metal instead of his," he said instead. He caressed the graven peacock with his thumb. He couldn't see it, but he knew quite well how gaudy it was.

Thomas chuckled. "Your fashion choices are--"

"--Classic," finished James firmly, with a tiny shudder at the memory of one of Thomas' more brazen dinner jackets. "Really, Thomas," he began, only to stop as Thomas' hand came down firmly on his thigh and squeezed.

"James," Thomas said. "Thank you, my friend."

James pulled Thomas close. "Of course," he said, trying to make it sound like defiance of standing orders were a simple thing. He was already working on ways to present the matter to the Duke -- and they had the precious intercepted dispatches, after all. He pressed his lips to Thomas' rough cheek.

"Quite the successful hunt after all," Thomas said. "Wasn't it?" He pressed his mouth to James' without waiting for an answer. He tasted like chocolate, although James knew well that he had had none for days. Thomas' mouth always tasted faintly like chocolate to him.

After some time, during which Thomas had rolled on top of him for a while, and then they had shifted so that James was lying atop Thomas, James took the opportunity to ask, "What would have happened had your pot been damaged?"

Thomas' mouth faltered where it was sucking gently at James' shoulder. "I suppose it would have ceased to function," he said. "I would have been without a focus."

"Could you have made a new one?" James asked, running his hands up Thomas' back underneath his tunic and shirt.

For a long moment Thomas was quiet. "I...don't know," he admitted eventually. "It takes quiet and long study to prepare."

"But you've done it before," James pointed out. "Oh, that feels nice," he added as Thomas nuzzled his throat.

"It very nearly didn't work," Thomas said. "In fact, I'm not entirely certain it did work. There's a chance that it's...well, as a focus it serves well enough for me. Must we dwell on this now?"

"No, I suppose not," James said. "I just wanted to understand a little more about what I was protecting." He took Thomas' earlobe between his teeth and nibbled gently at it.

"Me," Thomas said with a gasp. "You were protecting me." He curled his fingers into James' hair and set their mouths together again.

"Always," James promised, and parted his lips for Thomas. They twined together in the comfortable bubble of Thomas' sorcery. James assured himself that the cut along Thomas' ribs was in fact just a scratch and that his leg still bent around its bandage, while Thomas seemed intent on setting his fingertips on all of the pressure points of James' body which made him groan aloud with carnal pleasure. "I love you," James said at last, exhausted, with his face pressed to Thomas' heaving chest.

Thomas stroked the lines of James' shoulder. "I could ask for no dearer friend," he said contentedly, and James smiled, warmed and well satisfied.

 


End file.
